“Nothing doing, Gus! They left their tangled steamship affairs in the hands of my attorney, and they gave him an absolute, ironclad, airtight power of attorney to sell the ship, receive and receipt for all money due the company, and so on, and so on, ad libitum, ad infinitum; said power of attorney being nonrevocable for five years.”
“Great stuff! In due course the libelants sue in the United States District Court; your attorney appears for the defendants and confesses judgment, but pleads for a ten-day stay of execution until he can raise a mortgage on the vessel. But, strange to relate, the ten-day stay expires and the judgments against the steamer are not paid; so the judge of the United States District Court orders the steamer sold at public auction on the floor of the Merchants' Exchange to the highest bidder, to satisfy the claims of the creditors. Thirty days later the United States Marshal conducts the sale, and a gentleman named Cappy Ricks buys her in. The United States Marshal gives the said Ricks a bill of sale for her, which the said Ricks thereupon records in the United States Customhouse, and--”
“_Und Hoch der Kaiser! Und Hoch der_ John J. Bull! We've finally got that clear American title we've been looking for. It makes no difference what the nationality of a vessel is; the minute she enters the territorial waters of the United States of America she is amenable to the laws of the United States of America, one of which reads thusly: 'Thou shalt pay thy bills; and if thou dost not, then _poco tiempo_ thou shalt be made to pay them, even unto the seizure and sale of thy ship.' And with the purchase of that ship, under an order of sale issued by the United States District Court, she becomes a United States ship; we register her as such; and the United States simply has to stand back of the bill of sale it gave us. Germany knows that; England knows it; Austria knows it; and from the jackstaff of the late _Bavarian_, now renamed the _Alden M. Peasley_, in honor of my first grandson, there floats--”
J. Augustus Redell raised his index finger, enjoining silence:
“Now then! One, two, three! Down, left, up!”
_“O-ho, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so-ho pro-houdly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?”_